Turkish Football Federation finally sells TV rights

Published on February 07, 2001.

Istanbul--Turkish soccer fans are cheering the return of Major Football League matches on TV. Following a public tender on Jan. 31, the Turkish Football Federation (TFF) finally sold the broadcast rights of the matches for $465 million to a consortium consisting of Digital Platform and Atlas Yayincilik. Digital Platform is part of Cukurova Holding, which also owns digital pay-TV channel Digiturk. Atlas Yayincilik owns Isik TV, available only on cable. Other contenders for the rights were Star TV, Best TV and Boyut Produksiyon. The leagues were supposed to start on Jan. 26 but were postponed because the TFF was unable to sell the TV rights. Previously Teleon, a private pay-TV part of the Star Group, owned the TV rights but the TFF annulled its contract, claiming that Star Group had failed to meet financial obligations.